"A federal judge has ruled that a men-only draft is unconstitutional...."

Military.com reports.

"This case balances on the tension between the constitutionally enshrined power of Congress to raise armies and the constitutional mandate that no person be denied the equal protection of the law," wrote U.S. District Judge Gray Miller of the Southern District of Texas.

The lawsuit was filed in 2013 against the Selective Service System by Texas resident James Lesmeister, who later added San Diego resident Anthony Davis and the San Diego-based National Coalition for Men as additional plaintiffs....

"Forcing only males to register is an aspect of socially institutionalized male disposability and helps reinforce the stereotypes that support discrimination against men in other areas" such as divorce, child custody and domestic violence services, [Coalition attorney Marc] Angelucci said. "Women are now allowed in combat, so this decision is long overdue," he added. "After decades of sex discrimination against men in the Selective Service, the courts have finally found it unconstitutional to force only men to register."...

The judge... disagreed with the government's position that drafting women would be an administrative burden and that far more women than men will be found physically unfit for service after being drafted. Congress has expressed few concerns about female physical ability, but did focus more on societal consequences of drafting young mothers to go off to war, Miller said.

This goes against the Supreme Court case Rostker v. Goldberg, which I taught many times in Conlaw class. I've often thought about the specific, important physical difference between men and women — that only women can bear children. In an existential military predicament, we might care very much about maintaining the population. Quite aside from that, I think it would be hard to institute a draft if it meant forcing women into military service. But it would be hard to institute a draft and to give all women and no men the right to say yes or no about what happens to their bodies.

But the fact is we don't have the draft. We just have this registration for the draft — the theater of the potential draft. And what's showing in the government's theater matters not because of the reality of military service but because of the message. That's why the lawyer spoke in terms of reinforcing stereotypes.

Full disclosure: My mother was one of the first WACs, and my parents met in the Army, and I know for a fact that I only exist because of women in the military.